Diagnosing Maxtrac RSS on Toshiba T3100e

[K9RPL]

I've been trying to get the Maxtrac RSS R07.02.00 to see the serial ports on a Toshiba T3100e and the RSS just flat refuses to access either Comm Port (1 or 2). The T3100e is a 286 based portable that runs at either 12 or 6MHz. It has the typical serial ports using the normal IRQ's and addresses. I'm using a RIBLess cable form BlueMaX 49'ERS. Anytime I try the comm port test on the RSS, it reports some kind of comm port power fail error. I know the ports work. Even a full CheckIt test says they're fine and that's with a loopback connector.

If I run the very same RSS and cable on my Compaq Portable II (8MHz 286) it works just fine. No issues. I was hoping to move my radio programming software over to the T3100e since it's a bit easier to carry around. Not much lighter, but no where near as bulky as the Portable II.

I'm trying to find the Motorola commchek program and see if it reports anyting, but no luck so far finding it.

Any suggestions?

 

[K9RPL]

As a followup the error I'm seeing when I try the Serial Port test is:

Serial Bus Error:
#5 Power Failure

 

[RBMTS]

Hi Chuck
Some older laptops and PC's had the ability to set serial ports on or off via the PC BIOS. If you haven't yet, access the BIOS on power-up and look for any settings that would control the serial ports. I'll keep my fingers crossed for you.

Randy / N9APP

 

[ElroyJetson]

Old electronics, suspect component value drift or failure. Resistors off spec, capacitors that are leaky or off value or in the case of tantalum capacitors, hard shorted. Absolutely these can cause digital circuits to malfunction and error out.

 

[RFI-EMI-GUY]

When copying RSS without an installer, see if this attributes on any file are archive or read only. some RSS executables need to write to files to work.

 

[gary123]

Also if the computer is too fast then the port timing/communications get messed up.

 

[AM909]

Standard serial port IRQ and address (0x3F8 and IRQ4 for COM1)? Could something already be talking to the port? Can you create and boot from an MSDOS disk to eliminate anything that might be in the machine's OS config?